Pierre Clement de Laussat

Pierre Clement de Laussat (23 November 1756-10 April 1835) was the Colonial Governor of French Louisiana in 1803, succeeding Juan Manuel de Salcedo and preceding William C.C. Claiborne. He was the last French governor of Louisiana.

Biography
Pierre Clement de Laussat was born in Pau, France in 1756, and he worked as a financier in Pau and Bayonne; he was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, and he was elected to the Council of Ancients in 1797. In 1799, he entered the Conservative Senate after Napoleon Bonaparte's Coup of 18 Brumaire, and Bonaparte decided to appoint him interim Governor of French Louisiana in 1802 after Spain returned the region to the French Consulate (Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was supposed to assume the governorship). Laussat arrived in Louisiana on 26 March 1803, and he was interim governor for just two weeks before Napoleon agreed to sell Louisiana to the United States. Laussat implemented the Napoleonic Code and abolished the cabildo assembly during his short reign, and he transferred Louisiana to William C.C. Claiborne on 20 December 1803. From 1804 to 1809, he served as Prefect of Martinique, and he was captured by Britain in 1809. He decided to retire to his ancestral chateau in France, where he died in 1835.